AMAZING STORY

Randy Webb: Healing the Wounds from War

By Rick Settoon The 700 Club

CBN.com
 "The thing that affected me the most was seeing the little children with their bodies scarred over and missing limbs and stuff. It really tore at me. I began to take on a guilt from that. My drugs were a way of not dealing with it. It separated me from what was going on."

In Vietnam, it was red rock heroin, Asia's finest, for Randy Webb. When he returned to the States, he wanted to quit, but crystal meth, the highest quality speed, prevented that. The drug didn't matter; it was the needle.

"I can't even begin to count the number of times that I attempted to quit," Randy says, "and that rush is what you're going for when you're shooting up. The more intense the rush, the closer you are to dying at that moment. All you think about is the high; you don't worry about the chance. You just figure that if you die, you die. If I didn't have any drugs, I would shoot Epsom salts [or] ice water. I shot tequila one time just to feel something go through my veins and hit my heart."

Randy's heart was on the road up and down the West Coast, selling drugs, running from the law and from responsibility. His wife had to work, play both Mom and Dad to the children, while Randy ran drugs or slept for days.

"Everything took a backseat to my habit, and as far as what my wife needed or, later on, what my children needed, it didn't matter," he says. "My drugs came first. I was having a real hard time keeping them at bay so they didn't know what I was doing."

Randy explained away the needles by lying that he was diabetic. This neglect of family added even more guilt, and his drug addiction was driving him insane.

"It began to deteriorate me mentally and physically. I was virtually unable to carry on a conversation. I was unable to make any kind of judgment. I got to the point where I could not maintain a single thought in my head. My thoughts were like slivers of just information coming in."

There were also flashbacks from Vietnam.

"The paranoia would be overwhelming. I would begin to think back and dwell on the bad things that I saw. Then as my reality would leave me, it would be hard to separate that from where I was. I would be mowing a lawn in the front yard and go to take the grass catcher off. This is when military helicopters flew over, and that just took me back in such paranoia and fear. I hid out for a while."

Randy and his wife split up for two years. While living in a cabin in the Oregon mountains, he started reading a Bible he found lying on the floor. He began to miss his family. Randy returned home with a vow to live straight and go to church. But in a matter of weeks, he was committed only to the needle. He was once again a parasite to his family and filled with depression.

"I would sit in my chair in the morning and I would put that shotgun in my mouth and pull back the hammers on it and want to pull the trigger," he recalls. "But something had stopped me when I did that. I didn't want my children to hate me. It wasn't my love for my children; it was my self-centeredness still."

The turning point for Randy came one morning while raking the yard. His daughters ran right past him to leave for the store with their mother. No one even looked at Randy.

"I felt the Lord say to me as they walked by me, 'See, they don't need you. I'm not going to allow you to destroy them any longer. It's time to change or it's time to die.' I dropped to my knees. I asked the Lord to restore me and restore my family. I said, 'Lord,if you'll restore me and my family and take me off of these drugs, I'll serve you with the rest of my life.'"

That night, for the first time in 12 years, Randy had a peaceful sleep. He noticed a big change the next morning.

"All of a sudden, it was like the light just came on, and I realized there was no desire for the drug or the needle. I knew it was over. For the first time in my life, I knew it was over."

Needle addiction has been over for Randy Webb ever since he gave his life to Jesus Christ. His family is totally restored.

His wife admits, "He is the husband I always desired, and he's my best friend. He's a good father to his children."

"I'm going on eight years, and I still can't believe what He's doing day by day," Randy says. "It's been a continuous joy."

Randy now teaches several drug classes. He has a strong message for anyone hooked on the needle.

Randy says, "Anybody that's been on the needle can tell you [that] you don't quit under your own power. Hundreds of times I tried to quit; hundreds of times I failed. And every time I failed and went back to it, it got worse and worse and worse. When Jesus Christ came into my life, it was over. How could it be anything but God?"